There's a Time to Live
by Skyeblux
Summary: Sequel immediately following after, 'Everything has its Time'.  Grounded in the quaint, Victorian town of Barrowsville, the Doctor and Rose stumble upon a spate of heart attacks.  The question is was it from natural causes or death by fright?
1. Chapter 1

Title: There's a time to live…(1/?)

Required Reading: Sequel to 'Everything has its Time'

Rating: Teen

Genre: Episodic, adventure, mystery

Disclaimer: Only borrowing these fine characters. I own nothing and make nothing (in general but also concerning DW and the BBC!)

Summary: Sequel immediately following after 'Everything has its Time'. Grounded in the quaint, Victorian town of Barrowsville, the Doctor and Rose stumble upon a spate of heart attacks – natural causes or death by fright?

Prologue

"_**A time to live, a time to die, **_

_**A time to wonder and to wonder why? **_

_**There is a reason, there is a reason…" Caedmon's Call**_

Rose had long since scoured the rumpled sea of polyester, velvet, wool and contorted, modern art metal of clothing rails that now higgly-piggled throughout the wardrobe room for something more appropriate to wear in their antiquated foster home. Throwing some fluffy pillows on a slightly cleaner and clearer patch of console room grating she'd flopped inelegantly down in her restrictive and conservative Victorian attire and for several hours had been anachronistically flipping through back issues of Cosmo.

About an hour ago she'd started slowly and arduously applying the colour changing, mood, nail varnish that they picked up at the bizarre on Rhinoss 7 even though the Doctor had scoffed that the concoction only reacted to ambient room temperature and had no discernable physic insights. Still, she mused, he was always careful to keep his distance when the lacquer morphed into dark, black hues!

Normally she'd be champing at the bit to kidnap the oblivious, tinkering Time Lord but today she sat in contented silence as the Doctor administered his healing hands to the bowls of the ship. The sparkle and vigour was back in his eyes, relief and the slight residue of dread warred in his animated mania as he soldered and prodded. At times a look of such satisfaction, belonging and joy graced his angular features that Rose would simply watch him for countless moments undetected.

Rose had never seen the Doctor cry, never seen such forlorn grief and panic in his emotive eyes until they'd almost lost the T.A.R.D.I.S. and now that she allowed herself to fully replay her recent memories without the bitter sting of pain that imbued them she realised those eyes had flashed similarly during their heated argument born from her wrenching request to go home.

She mused over all this enigmatic alien had revealed to her since that climatic catalyst. It would take time to fully trust and depend upon one another again but Rose now believed, without a doubt, that the Doctor wanted and needed her to stay with him.

He is such a parody; in one breath he removes himself from petty and trivial human emotions, enforcing a distance between himself and the universe. He is the last of the Time Lords. No species could understand him, connect with him, challenge and spar with him on his elevated plain of consciousness and intellect and he defies and patronises any who try; yet on the other hand his magnificent flying machine is filled with human, historical sentimentally and familiar paraphernalia.

There is the vast, mahogany panelled library with its sumptuous, red, leather armchairs, the beautiful and intricate pyrography on his wooden, writing bureau, the carved and etched neoclassical artwork on the banisters and struts of the spiral staircase and the smell of musty, well loved books - not holo-novels, e-books or flash drives of data superimposed straight into the mind. The Roman baths/swimming pool, the easily recognisable white goods in the galley-esque kitchen, the pantry storing Earth food and drink in it's majority and of course the fact that the man himself seems prone to the persuading of lesser, human species to accompany and occupy his time all starkly contradict his self-imposed control and superiority.

But what really gives him away is his hearts, his compassion and continued alliance with those of inferior times and birth, his childlike excitement and glee in simple and benign discoveries and his innate need. A need that Rose had convinced herself was nothing more than her earthbound, romantic delusions but she now recognised in its vivid clarity.

He may not have proclaimed his love to her like some Casanova or sonnet writing Shakespeare and they would probably never have the type of romantic love that Rose had spent many sleepless nights fantasising about. Maybe he would always be too vast and too alien for something so simple and domestic to attract or dominant his epic mind and burgeoning breast so full of so many songs, so many moments, lives and emotions but they had something, something maybe even the great Time Lord himself couldn't quantify. That something had scared him enough to run to France and to confess a little of himself and his feelings in the aftermath.

The kind of something that meant that if you dropped a couple of random men on a beautiful and abundant island, they would still build their homes side by side, that leaves a child clinging to its injured brother on a cold, stormy night even though sanctuary and shelter are not far away, the need to share, to feel, to communicate and to have a hand to hold. Rose also knew that with the whole of Time and Space at his disposal that she may not be unique but she was something infinitely special that her Time Lord should choose her as his companion. She now realised that this wasn't an idle choice nor one he would go back on willingly and that was something beyond sex or kids or houses and mortgages that was much more rare and valuable.

Thus, bored stiff, she didn't disturb his work nor belittle his moment of regaining and reconnecting with his precious home. She was, after all, jointly responsible for the depth of emotion that had torn it apart in the first place and as she smiled a fond and benevolent smile at the blackened and belching T.A.R.D.I.S. a feeling of contentment and understanding washed over her like nothing she had ever experienced in her life.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Although simply content to ogle and contemplate the rumpled and energetic Time Lord smeared in grease and some alien combination of mechanic fluids, the fifth time her stomach grumbled it did so, so loudly and indigently that the Doctor paused in self-effacing horror.

"Oh Rose, I'm sorry. Feeling peckish eh? Can't have that primitive digestive system shutting down, can we? Breakfast?" He whirled his great coat about his shoulders and then as an after thought grabbed a cloth and spittled his face clean. "Allons-y!"

"Dinner actually!" Rose sighed, stretching her legs and wincing at the pins and needles that spiked through them as she unsteadily rose to her feet. "And ever heard of soup and water, that's disgusting!" she drawled.

They made their way back to the increasingly familiar tavern through a light fog that hung sporadically in the crisp autumnal air. The sudden silence at their entrance was far shorter this time and the Doctor pouted a little at the unspoken sentiment of, "Oh, only them again" and slouched his shoulders at the absence of a dramatic entrance.

"Still here then" the barkeep unnecessarily observed but the Doctor, top full of renewed joviality, was not a man to be deterred.

"Good news! All's quiet on the Eastern front and Miss Tyler and I wish to partake of your egregious hospitality a little longer." His address was met by an eye roll and several derogatory stares but his addition of, "Drinky-poos are on me, fill those sloshing beer bellies of the whole house, my good man" suddenly lifted the punter's spirits (literally) and smiles were easily cemented as he threw a generous amount of currency onto the bar.

"Now", he smacked his hands together, "My lady and I are starving, any chance of some grub?"

The stupefied tender half fell over himself to usher the couple to the best seats in the house – a simple wooden booth by the roaring fire and fogged up window at the back of the bar – apparently the attitude to material wealth still erased all sins.

Half an hour later Rose and the Doctor were graced with a selection of meats, cheeses, breads and home-grown veges served on silver tableware and accompanied by an ornate jug full of local brewed wine.

"Why's there an ice pick on the table? Little early for 'Basic Instinct' ain't it?" Rose observed in confusion.

"Ah, past time coutelerie, old French from cultellus meaning knife. This, Lady Rose is a Sheffield Silver, butter pick and pat circa 1883. Isn't that brilliant! Lost all civilisations by your lot's time." he beamed as he fiddled with the implement.

"If you say so and can you stop swinging…Doctor…Stop it!" She stilled his hand just as the pick somersaulted across the room and into a metal tankard with a plop and splash.

"Sorry", Rose smiled regretfully over at the rather tipsy gentlemen in scuffed boots and breeches as the unruly item brought a sudden stop to his rendition of, "When Irish Eyes are Smiling"!

"Oops!" escaped the Doctor though the crinkled laughter lines around his mirthful brown eyes had not diminished.

"Can't take you anywhere", Rose scolded and tried in vain to hide the twitching smirk that threatened her continence.

Just then a blood-curdling scream filled the night and the shape of a woman dropped to her knees outside the small, bevelled panes.

The Doctor had sprung to his feet by the time Rose had turned to face him.

Waggling his eyebrows in that innocuous and misappropriated way of his he extended his hand, wiggling his long fingers in her general direction.

"Miss Tyler, I think that's our cue", he smiled enthusiastically.

Rose matched the glint of excitement in her own eyes and grasped his hand, intertwining their fingers, as he half pulled and half ran with her out into the cold, foreboding night.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 2

A small crowd had gathered in the entranceway of a narrow, winding alley as the Doctor and Rose pushed through, brandishing their psychic paper like a weapon.

"Nothing to see. We'll take it from here."

The Doctor squatted to his knees beside the body of an elderly gentleman dressed in sophisticated attire and a warm, woollen coat. His pallid face was contorted in an eerie, silent scream as his unfocused gaze seemed to either entreat or curse the heavens.

The crowd was growing despite their reassurances so the Doctor stilled the hand that was surreptitiously reaching for his sonic screwdriver and instead placed two fingers at the pulse point of the man's neck.

"He's dead." This spurred another flurry of muffled screams and anxious whisperings as the Doctor locked regretful eyes with Rose who, as ever, was steadfast by his side.

He leaned forward for a closer inspection of the corpse and Rose quietly muttered, "Please, don't lick him". He cocked an amused eyebrow her way, obviously having heard, _damn him and his infuriating superhero hearing._

Deft hands explored the prone body as his brow furrowed in concentration. Luckily the only thing he licked was his finger as he seemed to attempt to taste the very atmosphere.

"Rather primitive but take 37.5 degrees Celsius and minus the 1.5 degrees, the standard rate of heat loss per hour and factor in the chilly conditions in situ which reduce said rate and the fact that rigor mortis is already evident in the smaller muscles of the face and neck and I'd put time of death at about two to three hours ago, say 6:47pm", the Doctor rambled off.

"S'it's very precise", she sounded impressed and a little startled by his Sherlocking.

"Rose, really! I AM a Time Lord." He grinned smugly before diverting his gaze rather melodramatically to the deceased's right flank and the broken pocket watch that lay on the ground.

"Oh…you cheat", she squeaked indignantly.

The Doctor chuckled, but taking in the less than amused, grim faces continued, "Sun set today at approximately 5:17pm and the street lamps don't encroach far enough on the shadows at the alley's entrance, so makes sense that he wasn't found immediately. No outward sign of assault, no defensive wounds, bruising, abrasions etc, except that he's sustained a head injury concurrent with the fall. The level of blood flow from that contusion suggests that it was received post mortem. He was dead even before he hit the ground. So best guess given his age, stature and bad diet, I'd say, heart attack".

"Bad diet?" Rose queried.

"Teeth are in worse condition than mine were after spending a week on Chocovan in the Delurie sector." At her blank look he helpfully supplied, "Where they invented the galaxy's best chocolate. You really think the universe was without chocolate 'til John Cadbury in 1849? Ha!"

The Doctor gave the body a last look over and rummage, pulling a black, leather wallet out of the expensive coat that, he was less than impressed to see, rivalled his own. "Richard Roddenberry. Must have been a naval officer. Look at his carte-de-visite…" he exaggeratedly over-pronounced with a click of his tongue, said tongue curled playfully on the roof of his open mouth. "…His handsome, stern faced, noble portrait photo, very imposing!"

The Doctor imitated the popular visiting card photos of the time with a strong, firm set jaw and an all too serious expression. Rose laughed, despite herself!

"Come on!" He grabbed her hand and danced an erratic waltz through the crowd as police whistles and official sounding, barked orders penetrated the macabre night.

They didn't slow, running giddily and flashing one another smiles, until they reached the T.A.R.D.I.S.

Their faces sobered as they tumbled into the blue, wooden box and were reminded of their ailing friend's condition, though the sentient sensation herself tried to send them a warm, encouraging smile as she brightened the pulsating lights that still worked.

Rose cleared her throat, "Sooo…very impressive back there, Sherlock. Shall I fetch your violin and deerstalker?"

"Ah, it was elementary my dear Watson", ignoring her quipping jibes. "Though that would make you the Doctor, can't have that. I'd be redundant and by the way, yes, I AM that impressive", he smirked.

"Oh, you're so full of it?"

"Full of what? Knowledge, charisma, inexplicable animal magnetism?" he leered, bumping shoulders with her.

Rose rolled her eyes and gave him a shove which he pretended to stumble from.

"So, natural causes then?"

"'Fraid so!" his energy diminished.

"That's good though, right?"

"Right. Good."

They stood staring at each other in companionable silence.

Doctor- "Stillll…a bit of murder and mayhem…"

Rose -"…a mystery or alien intervention…"

Doctor - "…a worthy game afoot…"

Rose - "…would be…"

Doctor - "…yeah, it would…maybe tomorrow…"

Rose - "…yeah…"

Doctor - "…yeah…"

Rose - "…right…"

Doctor - "…bed?"

Rose - "What?"

"Sorry, you off to bed then?" the Doctor asked, scrubbing at the hair on the back of his head.

"Oh…hmmm…yeah. That's a good…hmmm…do I have a bed?"

"What?"

"Bed?" Rose prompted, a little flushed by the ease of their teasing banter that had been so sorely missed of late.

"Right. Yeah, the T.A.R.D.I.S. has reopened some of her interior, though your room is looking a little dishevelled and covered in broken glass and, well, blood…maybe…I mean…mine's not looking too bad, if you want?"

The Doctor rocked nervously back and forth on his converse, clad heels as he pulled distractedly at an earlobe that should by rights have elongated to at least twice the size by now. The unbidden image of the Doctor with Dumbo ears made Rose snort until she saw the dejected look in his eyes and smiled affectionately at her befuddling, endearing Doctor.

"That ok?" she hesitated.

"Course, why wouldn't it be?" His Adam's apple bobbed under a forced swallow.

"No reason. Thanks", she smiled almost nervously.

"Hmmm…it should be the second door on the left now."

Rose turned to head into the decreased bowels of the ship but stopped after a few paces and walked quickly to the Doctor, embracing him in a tight but brief hug. He didn't even have time to properly hug her back before she was pulling away with a shy peck on the cheek and saying goodnight.

The Doctor followed her exit with his eyes before letting out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding and spinning the sonic in the air. "Right! Back to work."


	4. Chapter 4

Hey, Sorry I'm late in updating – I'm dying of the common cold! Typical! Anyway, the death toll mounts up here in chapter 3; enjoy! And thanks so much to all of you who are following and reviewing – it means a lot.

Chapter 3

Rose stirred languidly from slumber the next morning, stretching like a tabby cat basking in the sun on a comfy, conservatory armchair. She purred in pleasure shimmying her hips against the luscious, royal blue, satin sheets that delicately encased her wriggling form.

She lay sprawled out in the middle of a sumptuous, king size bed; the mattress as deliciously soft as a mountain of feathers yet supporting like those memory foam things her mother kept eying on Q.V.C. '_Bloody bastard of a Time Lord having such a gorgeous bed when he hardly ever sleeps.'_

The source of her ire really was a piece of art, large and sturdy with varnished ebony, bog oak twisting and climbing like natural vines from the four corners of the bed and joining one another near the ceiling in a beautiful rectangular frame from which soft, midnight blue and silver laced, voile drapes, cascaded to the floor.

There wasn't much else in the room that could have imploded dangerously on impact of the crashing T.A.R.D.I.S. and the Rose couldn't discern whether the items that did litter the floor were broken victims of the ground force attack or of one sonic plus Doctor.

Warm, amber hues of the T.A.R.D.I.S.-style, synthesised dawn informed her that she'd slept through her normal circadian rhythm but, contrary as ever, Rose sank deeper beneath the mattress with the logic that a.) The Doctor hadn't been to bed yet, b.) This meant he'd lost track of time, incongruously enough, lavishing attention on the T.A.R.D.I.S. which meant that, c.) He'd either be at it all day again so there was no hurry to get up or d.) He'd finally come to bed in which case Rose had no intention of getting up.

Many hours later, when hunger had finally won out. Rose shuffled into the dilapidated, console room. The Doctor was unconscious on top of the pile of pillows that Rose had left yesterday, glasses still in place if a little crooked. Rose allowed herself a few moments to absorb the picture of the sleeping Time Lord into her memory bank as she rarely had the occasion to catch him so defenceless and still, not to mention quiet.

She took in his long, slender limbs, sprawled haphazardly in a position that spoke less of comfort but the necessity of immediate sleep. His suit jacket was rumpled and creased, the top button taut and straining as it had ridden up his chest, the blue Henley shirt untucked in places and puckering in others. The skin of his face appeared so soft and relaxed, sprinkled with freckles like pixie dust. He looked so young, vulnerable and innocent in slumber with his ancient eyes that belied his age and intensity of his soul, gently fluttering beneath his lids.

Rose sighed happily but quickly shrugged off the feeling of tranquillity and appreciation that had stilled her and kicked a converse, clad foot.

"Banana hammock," the Doctor blinked blearily to wakefulness.

"What?"

He absently massaged his neck, rolling his head until there was an audible crack and grimace. With cloudy eyes and a comically stereotypical yawn that made his dilated pupils glisten with watery slumber, he looked up at one Rose Tyler, her tongue teasingly poking out of her full lips and her eyes dancing with mirth. He smelt of warmth and sleep and his hair was fluffed, downy and soft accessorising his dishevelled and adorable state.

"What, 'what?'" he groused.

Rose just laughed. "I'm hungry, yeah? Can you spare a girl a few bob for breaky?"

The Doctor pulled himself up like a puppet adapting to the lack of strings and stretched as he stifled another drowsy yawn.

"You're brilliant, Rose Tyler. Did I ever tell you that? Food's right on the money! Breakfast is after all the most important meal of the day, next to brunch, lunch, tea, dinner and supper of course!"

He shook out his extremities groaning a little before jumping up and down, as if to reacquaint himself with his natural bounce, and then held out his hand.

Rose smiled indulgently accepting his in hers as they headed out to scavenge for sustenance.

Unoriginally heading towards the tavern once again they heard the bang of wooden doors of an old coroner's wagon by the park square as it proceeded to rattle off down the street. Both paused but at Rose's pleading look they quickly sped through the half door of the warm and welcoming pub.

Bellies pleasantly rotund and bodies lazy and warm they relaxed and sampled the local ale, picking occasionally at the few meagre remains of their breakfast.

Eventually and begrudgingly Rose, rose from her seat and ambled in the direction of the toilet leaving a fidgeting and restless Time Lord to chat to the locals.

"Some drama last night, eh?" he purred in the ear of an elderly gentlemen, who had been innocently sipping at his barleyed brew, before turning the chair beside him around and straddling it, resting his elbows on the back and giving his best encouraging smile.

Luckily in these small towns there wasn't much else to do but talk so talking was an addictive past time employed by most. "Awful isn't it? And then again this morning, old Mr. Windsor, out for his morning constitutional. Terrible business, terrible. People are saying they were 'eart attacks but I've got other ideas."

"Oh?" the Doctor leaned in conspiratorially, balancing on the back legs of the protesting chair.

"Witnesses say both men died with the fear of the almighty clearly writ on their faces. Something smells rotten sonny and it ain't my missus' stew, I tells ya."

The Doctor's bushy brows rose in curiosity and he was about to theorise further when a high pitched scream resounded about the room.

Rose had wadded into the bathroom and grimaced at the lack of make-up on her face in the mirror. Heaving a sigh she blew the golden strands that had wisped down in tickly tendrils from her pinned up-do and went to pull open the toilet door but it creaked disagreeably in return and wouldn't budge.

"Sorry didn't realise there was anyone else in here," she called in embarrassment but there was no response so she tried again, actually putting some effort and strength behind her tug this time, when suddenly the door flung open in her hands and something white and heavy lunged towards her.

Rose let out a surprised shriek as she tumbled backwards.

Within seconds the bathroom door burst open to reveal a rather panic stricken Doctor. "Rose?" he questioned her wide, stunned eyes and their conjoined gazes slowly lowered to the floor in front of Rose's feet.

Motionless and awkward, the stiff form of a middle-aged woman lay before them, face deathly pale, eyes glazed and wide in abject horror, gowned in a simple white dress of the period. Rose bit back a sob at the sight of yet another person whose last moral moments had been filled with fear and terror so strong that it marred their features even in death.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 4

The dynamic duo sat huddled together against the chill of the day on a bench in the square staring at the crumbling curves and contours of the nude angelic feature, her arms outstretched to the heavens as gently, trickling water spurted from between her weathered wings. The framing, symmetrical lines of trees were mostly bare, their burdens trampled and sodden in a blur of russets, muddy browns and golds, scattered upon the triangular swatches of grass.

"So, another heart attack?" the blonde queried with an ill-suppressed shiver.

"Yup!" The Doctor draped an arm over her shoulders and pulled her closer, Rose gratefully accepting.

"Coincidence?" she peered up under her long lashes at the slightly stubbled underside of his chin.

"Maybe," she quieted to let him think and tried to focus on the itchy material of his coat and weight of his hand perched so close to her face, instead of the cold.

After a few moments she spoke again.

"Doctor?"

"Hmmm?" He didn't look at her just rubbed his hand back and forth a few times over her shoulder.

"It is actually possible for a person to…to die of fright?" Her girlish features scrunched into a frown mixed with hints of disbelief and disgust.

He looked at her then, hooking a strangely warm finger under her chin.

"You ok? That was some shock and not the good kind."

She nodded gently, careful not to displace his stroking fingers.

"Is it?"

"Weeellll," he drawled, either to stall and discombobulate or emphasis the immensity and variety of his knowledge. "It's possible but not common. If the shock is severe enough the sudden burst of chemicals including adrenalin combined with vasovagal syncope - the vagus nerve relates sensory information of internal organs to the central nervous system and responds by a plummeting in blood pressure and heart rate that causes fainting or shock – can, usually in the presence of a pre-existing heart condition, cause the organ to fail," he stared stoically ahead, expression inscrutable as he relayed pure science without emotion.

"But these people displayed many of the risk factors associated with poor heart conditions, yeah?" she prompted.

"Yeah but still three separate cases of, 'dying by fright' in succession, not very likely," he concluded.

"You scared travelling with me on the fright night train could prove fatal? Death by Doctor related heebie-jeebies?" he articulated jostling her out of her revere.

"Heebie-jeebies?" she barked out a laugh. "Is heebie-jeebies the scientific term, Doctor? Thought you didn't believe in anything as vague as heebie-jeebies?"

"Stop saying heebie-jeebies!" he stressed emphatically as he slumped in defeat in his tailored, Janis Joplin trench coat, as a faint mist of dizzily rain added to his misery.

"What? You started it," she teased, tongue in cheek.

"Note to self, NEVER, under any circumstance, repeat the word heebie-jeebies."

"Heebie-jeebies!" Rose muffled through a melodramatic cough.

"Rose?" he warned.

"Hebe…Ahhhh!" The Doctor assaulted her with his deft poking finger as she squealed and squirmed by his side until her raucous laughter turned into a sputtering coughing fit.

"That'll teach ya," he admonished smugly as he slapped her profunctually on the back.

"Nah!" she smiled. "Though you're an old man, got to watch your tickers!"

"Oi! I'll have you know that I'm a fine specimen of manhood and in pristine condition," he feigned a bug eyed look of insult and pouted prettily.

"That you are," Rose barely contained the predatory gleam in her eye but chuckled gratuitously as the 'specimen of manhood' blushed like a prepubescent boy.

"Anyway…shall we make some house calls, Doctor Watson?" he recovered admirably and held out a crinkled photograph for her inspection.

The sepia stains of pre-digitalised photography reflected the unmistakable features of Rose's 'toilet corpse' in hues barely differential to her last visage.

"Looks like it's recent?" Rose remarked.

"Check the back," he grinned.

"W. J. Madden. Photographic Studio?"

"Same as good ol' Mr. Roddenberry's, though there's probably only one photographer in town. Still good a place to start as any."

Although they joked around hocus-pocus superstitions and being scared literally to a physical demise, there was an uncomfortable, ever-present undertow of real incapacitating fear. The Doctor, the hero who outlives all he loves and inspires reckless self-sacrifice and martyrdom paralysed by the very real possibility that 'death by Doctor' will be Rose's epitaph and Rose, conscious of her choice and the risks, clinging to the idealistic hope of 'it'll never happen to them' but terrified of endangering her Time Lord through some folly of the '_stupidus apus'_ or leaving him alone without a hand to hold in the vast universe.

Bill Madden knelt in quiet communion, unfazed by the long, wet grass beneath his black suit trousers. In his hands was a wild, untrained bouquet of perfect mauve fox gloves and buds of honey suckle, bound with a simple black velvet ribbon.

"Her favourites," he whispered, disengaging his statuesque stupor as the sound of footsteps over squelching leaves and zipping squeaks of grass, penetrated his delirium.

"I'm sorry," came a low, respectful voice from beneath his hutched shoulders as Bill bent to offer his gift to his goddess of the grave, a simple stone cross marking her place in the midst of the overgrown moss and time torn cemetery. She rested in eternal sleep beneath an ivy choked, towering, oak tree.

"I'm the Doctor and this is Rose Tyler. We stopped by your Studio; your land lady told us where to find you."

Bill let out an exasperated sigh and rose to his feet turning to face the intruders who were ramshackling upon his grief.

"Studio's closed today. If you want a marriage portrait it'll have to wait 'til tomorrow." He moved to pass the couple already fazing out their presence.

"Mr. Roddenberry, Mr. Windsor and Mrs. Turbidity are the last three signatures in your guest book of satisfied customers,"tThe tall, imposing gentleman continued much to Bill's chagrin.

He paused in his flight, "So?"

"So? They're dead."

Bill paled and stilled in incredulity, sagging slightly on sluggish, unresponsive knees. Rose ran to his aid, taking some of his weight and sending a pointed glare at the Doctor, astounded at his clueless lack of sensitivity in a graveyard of all places.

Rose ushered her shell-shocked patient to a nearby bench and sat quietly at his side; the Doctor coming to rest in front of Bill and crouching low to shift his presence from imposing to comforting.

"How? When?" Bill finally choked out.

"All in the last 24 hours. Heart attacks."

"Ha, yeah. Right!"

The Doctor and Rose shared curious glances as Bill began to laugh in a demented menacing way that masked a very real need to cry or scream or run.

"I told them…I did…but they wouldn't listen…oh no…" he spoke to the very air and rocked back and forth as if his body was perched on the edge of flight, anxious and itching from the inside out.

"What William, what did you tell them?" Rose coaxed gently, smoothing a calming hand down his back.

"Words, words only the dead can hear lest you rouse death itself from its shallow grave and become its corpse bride in dirt, decay and damnation." His eyes pleaded so desperately for something Rose longed to own so that she could gift it to him, her own eyes moist in sympathy and compassion and reeling at an unknown injustice.


	6. Chapter 6

"I was serious. I can't tell you what I told them. My words are weapons and have caused enough death." Bill's voice was calmer now, surer but still imprinted with some ominous touch of darkness and an endured acceptance of pain.

They sat, three unlikely companions, around a small, coffee table in Madden's studio, sipping from chipped, china cups - the storm, the healer, the dispossessed.

"Words have a time when their meaning is apt and their sentiment precious. There's a time to say no, to say thank you, to say I love you, to say I'm sorry…" both Rose and Bill seemed to tremble a little even as even these words kissed the air. "…and words connect with startling power when said at the right time and to the right person. Bill the time is now and I am the right person," the Doctor concluded with heartfelt confidence and quiet authority as he braced a firm hand on Bill's shoulder and ducked into his lower line of sight with a reassuring smile and an air of patience and unsolicited forgiveness.

Bill rose in slow motion and walked heavily to a scuffed wooden trestle table in the corner. The table was awash with papers and prints, piles that leaned perilously and heaps that had already surrendered to gravity. What little of the surface that could be seen was pocked with ink stains and chemical reagents, photographer's tools of the trade. To the right of the laden surface was a ragged, black, cloth curtain slightly open, revealing glimpses of diffused crimson light, string lines of pegged photographs, containers marked, developer, stop and fixer and a splashed and rusted sink wherein floated immortalised moments of lives. Newspaper articles and instructive texts and charts were tacked to the wall as well as faded contact test strips and dog-eared pictures.

When Bill turned back he had retrieved an image from the debris which he stroked a reverent thumb over before passing to the Doctor who took it with equally careful fingers.

"Stella," Bill said simply.

"She's passed," the Time Lord answered in understanding.

"Six months," he coughed back a sob.

"I'm sorry," Rose offered meekly and pulled her stool closer to the Doctor and lightly fingered the outline of the subject's feminine features.

"She's beautiful and she looks happy," Bill managed a smile at that before slumping back down on his chair.

"There was the most amazing sunset up along the brae near Davidson's bridge. The sky seemed lit from below, the world and its wares in perfect, stark silhouette and the few clouds, distinct and clear, as they drifted by. We'd been out for a picnic by the river; the air was warm and perfumed with jasmine and honeysuckle, sugary sweet. It seemed to go to our heads we were so giddy and in love that day. Stella had brought her charcoal and paper and I my camera, though it was heavy to lug around.

"On the way home I just couldn't resist one more shot of her by that bridge and under that sky. She climbed the stone structure and sat laughing and dangling her legs over the water when some godless stray current of wind blew her bonnet from her head and she reached to retrieve it. She fell. The rapids were too strong. I rushed to her aid immediately but by the time I got to the bridge she'd already been carried quite a distance on the fast, flowing tide. There was nothing I could do."

The stranger's listened respectfully with sorrow in their hearts as the tragedy unfolded.

"It wasn't your fault," the Doctor affirmed and Bill nodded emphatically as he brushed back silent tears and heaved a great mournful sigh.

"Anyway, that's not why we're all here," he returned to the table, searching again and rubbing his palms against his trousers.

"Just before she fell I saw something, something I can't explain - a dark umbra, ephemeral that seemed to engulf my Stella in the moment before her death. Here it is, the photograph I'd been taking."

The laughing face of the pretty, fair haired maiden was somewhat blurred as if obscured by a shadow cast except that didn't tally with the direction of the illumination. But there she sat so vivid and vivacious in her manner as she rested playfully upon the bridge that her image seemed almost three dimensional and tangible.

"I think that thing, whatever it was, was waiting to claim her spirit and maybe even pushed her. Death itself, her own personal harbinger. I know it sounds ridiculous. I thought so too until I met you." The Doctor slipped on his broad rimmed spectacles for closer examination and Rose exhaled cautiously as she pressed her face close to his to join the intricate inspection. She noticed, absently, that though she was half peering through his specs, there was no difference with their effect.

"What did I do?" The Doctor sounded slightly affronted.

"Told me about Richard, John and Maggie. I'd shared my suspicions with them one night and that's when things became even stranger. They all confided to me afterwards that they had been plagued by bizarre and phantom occurrences. Richard, a widower who lived on his own except for a few servants below stairs, woke one night to the sound of scratching from under his bed and when he opened his eyes he saw that the blankets had been stripped off his bed and lay in a heap on the other side of the room.

"John was walking home once at twilight and swore he heard someone following him through the bushes; said he felt a dark, suffocating presence and slept with his door locked that evening. And Maggie had heard shrieking howls from upstairs and seen weird lights in the corridor but when she went to check there was nothing there."

The Doctor looked intrigued and templed his fingers in thought as Rose shifted uncomfortably, "Scary biscuits," she shivered.

"Quite," he replied and reached a steady hand out to clasp hers where it had tensed on her knee.

Bill circled behind them as he returned to his seat and sipped the luke warm tea to soothe his throat before continuing.

"Having seen this apparition in Stella's photograph all three then begged me to take theirs and sure enough, strange indistinct shadows masked their faces in every shot. I checked all my equipment and took other pictures that afternoon for comparison. Everything was working normally."

With a resigned breath of someone not expecting to be believed Madden concluded, "I think it knows we've seen it. That we know it exists and wants to silence us one by one." He pulled out a slim hip flask and poured some of the contents into his empty cup.

"Guess that means I'm next."


	7. Chapter 7

Back on the T.A.R.D.I.S. who seemed thankfully more like her old self, even with circuitry, gadgets and gizmos strew around (this was fairly normal after all), Rose and the Doctor nursed another cuppa and compared notes.

"Have you ever heard of anything like this before?" Rose wondered as she gratefully sipped the steaming, hot beverage and pulled a blanket more snugly about her shoulders.

The two of them sitting cross legged in a nest of pillows, looked like they were ruminating around a camp fire or telling ghost stories to tantalise and scare at a slumber party.

"Well many cultures and societies have their own lore and myths concerning harbingers of death. It's strange how fascinated the living seem about dying. Most of these fables grew from ancient oral traditions and morphed over the centuries like Chinese whispers but such similar accounts may suggest, as in most cases, that the stories were born from some seed of truth.

The Irish have their banshees, shrieking eerie screams in the night, the Bean Sidhe, fairy woman. Certain animals are associated with the dark arts and possession, seeing a black cat, a crow or an owl are all said to foretell a coming fatality, these beings, supernatural messengers. Greek and Roman myth has Cerberus, the three headed dog as a guardian to the portal of the underworld and hence the British legend of the Black Shuck, dog, is often associated with imminent death like Conan Doyle's 'Hound of the Baskerville's'."

"Good old Sherlock!" they shared a pensive smile.

"Then there are the stories of vehicles that come to collect the souls of the dead like the headless horseman and the horse drawn coach rattling through the fog on cobbled streets. The Egyptians believed in the Asphyx, a spirit that appeared at the precise moment of a person's death to convey their soul to the underworld, though later Asphyx became a death metal Dutch band!"

"So this Asphyx then, is that like succu…succumbo…" Rose's face scrunched into adorable dimples and frown lines in thought as the Doctor smiled fondly at her, helping her out, "Succubi or Lilith? No a succubus was a female seductress that drained life energy from men as they…hmmm…fornicated."

Rose snorted, "Fornicated? You mean shagged." The Doctor blushed.

"Poor women, ever since that blasted Eve one..."

"Oh no there are male succubi as well though they're known as incubi."

Rose chuckled quietly, then louder as her body joined in with shaking convulsions!

"What?"

"You're such an adorable geek," she mused.

"Intelligence is sexy," he rebutted.

"Yeah, Geek Chic!" She laughed harder as the Doctor feigned a pout with his lovely moist, swollen, bottom lip.

"You wanna start again but with your brainy specs on?" the T.A.R.D.I.S. seemed to join in her mockery with an interpretive high five.

"Oi!" he huffed, arms folded against a puffed out chest.

"Ok…ok…" the spasms slowly abated, "So how comes there's no shadowy Asphyx thingy on the snaps we saw? Wrong photos? Or did they disappear into the image?" Rose's voice dropped to a husky whisper as she did her best Leonard Nimoy, 'Beam me up, Scottie' impression. The Doctor quirked a 'seriously?' eyebrow and smiled fondly at ridiculous human.

"I'm not sure there ever were any shadows", he replied wistfully.

"But Madden saw them?"

"Oh, now you want me to play clever clogs again, eh?" he teased and mimed zipping his mouth shut. Rose rolled her eyes, as if the silence would last!

"Ohhhh, but you're so good at it," she whined with an added batting of her eye lashes which caused the Doctor to do a double take and force back a smile.

"Psychosomatic," he curled his tongue greedily around the word and winked at Rose with a wiggle of his eye brows.

"No? Oh ok. You know that whole, 'In 1492 Columbus sailed the Ocean blue' memory aid thing?" she nodded amused by yet another tangent. Did this infuriating man ever just answer a simple question?

"It's purported by scholars of quantum mechanics that when the indigenous people of America looked out to where Columbus' galleons straddled the seas they saw nothing, the idea being that the invention of ships was so beyond the imagination of possible realities to the natives that their brains simply dismissed them as fact. Each reality is personal due to our perceptions and what we find it capable of conceiving…of... Sorry that was clumsy!" he winced.

"Anyway, it's said that as the naval fleet grew closer the big chef, shaman guy noticed the effect on the tides and realised that there must be a cause so he stared night and day out to sea until eventually his mind allowed him to see the vessels on the horizon. Once he'd seen them, he could describe what they looked like and suddenly everyone could see them."

"And?" she prompted.

"And…" he slapped her playfully on the arm and Rose stuck her pink tongue out at him cheekily. "…this could be similar. Madden described what he saw, planted the idea, the suggestion, into our 'victims' minds and in such a superstitious, backward society their imagination provided the rest."

"Awh, that's very boring and logical," she sulked. "Can't we just go ghost busting?"

"Ok…the Asphyx do exist…" He visibly braced for the anticipated, shrill reaction.

"What? You sneak!"

He raised his hands to placate her.

"But they don't cause death nor are they spooky harbingers, omens or foreboding messengers. They're just astral beings that feed off intense psychological emotion. They're peaceful, respectful. They don't drain too much nor invoke the conditions they're just somewhat temporally sensitive and are drawn to powerful events in a person's timeline to absorb the excess energy. They exist on many planets and have never yet posed an actual threat."

"Yet? But we can't see them, right? So what would they do if for some reason they were seen?"

"I don't know," he paused, ruffling manically through his long, sleek hair in vexation.

"The only time they're ever seen are time's that can't be quantified or reported as they only usually manifest strongly enough under the highest of stress and emotion, when someone is about to die and even then they can only be seen due to the high concentration of a person's psyche that briefly resides in them and the 'soul' recognises itself."

Later that night the Doctor crept silently into his own bedroom sanctuary and sat rigidly on an old embroidered chair by the voluptuous bed. His mouth was set in a thin, grim line, elbows on his knees, breathing as quietly as a corpse through his nose.

Rose slept peacefully with a serene, lax expression on her silken creamy face. She looked like a child, diminutive and out of proportion in the huge bed.

The Doctor allowed himself an affectionate smile in the face of her grace. Awake she resembled so strongly, the laughing, passionate person of Stella in that final photograph. His hearts stung in his chest, constricting painfully and making breathing difficult and laboured.

One day he'd lose her, this was a certainty in his life. His precious, sarcastic, compassionate, uneducated Rose. After all this time he'd truly convinced himself that he was accustomed to loss but the thought of losing his Rose pained him more than his loquacious words could say.

The absence of the object of such pride, freedom, salvation and ,chuckling mirthlessly, he added subconsciously, of love, would leave such a hole, the kind of which may never be refilled. Oh there were so many things he wanted to say, to do, her briefest touch tingled and reverberated through his skin as powerful as an oasis to the desert wanderer. He was so bereft of any faintest symbols of intimacy that a hand to hold was sensitive enough to still the turning of universe in the blink of an eye.

He needed her so much, too much, it terrified him. If he let himself belong to her any further he would drown in the swell of fountains of tears that would bleed him dry when she was gone. So for now he watched over this incredible human child and vowed to spend every last day he had with her repaying her trust and devotion with excitement and happiness, a full and fantastic life.


	8. Chapter 8

They had resolved to head out early in the hope that their persistence and sleepless sacrifice may induce lady luck to bestow on them her favour.

Rose was dressed plainly and professionally, her hair piled thickly upon her head and her eyes sparkling behind delicate, school mistress' glasses, a sight that would make even a Time Lord's libido burn. A pencil was tucked behind her ear and a notebook clasped tightly to her breast. The Doctor was unchanged, claiming that his suit morphed discreetly to blend to any occasion, although he did hold the black, leather wallet, welding psychic paper firmly in one hand.

"Dr. Smith. Coroner sent down from the city to assess recent events. This is my personal assistant, Miss Tyler." Rose smiled smugly at his slight syllabic stresses on the word 'personal'.

The mortuary gates cranked scratchily open as a flustered staff member ushered them through into the building.

The morgue was as clinical and clean as could be expected of the time period and ridiculously overly manufactured instruments glinted their metallic gleam in the purely functional overhead lamp.

"Got a new one for you. Just came in this morning. Great timing," the man chuckled nervously.

"Let me know if you need anything. Dr. Jameson isn't in this early but I'll alert him on his arrival."

Rose grinned pleasantly at the man as the Doctor stared brusquely down his nose at the stammering, retreating form.

"Aowhh!" Rose retched. "What is that stench?"

The Doctor sniffed seriously at the air edging closer to the white sheeted, new comer.

"Smells like…" he clicked his tongue and took in an ample breath screwing up his features like a predator on the hunt.

"Ammonia and stinky chemistry practicals," Rose supplied.

"Miss Tyler you're brilliant!" the Doctor whirled on her, his coat tails flapping and buffeting a gust of air that stirred the covers of the corpse perilously.

"Not really. Usually wound up blowing something up or burning something. Peroxide plus Bunsen burner is not an attractive fashion statement!"

He was not deterred and hastily grabbed her by the upper arms and smacked a kiss to her forehead before running out of the room.

"I hate it when he does that," Rose groaned and headed off in pursuit but just outside the double doors she collided with a trolley and the panicked mortician's assistant.

"Oh sorry," she wheezed, a little winded.

"Miss ar-r-r-e you alright?" He pulled her to her feet and dusted her down shyly.

"No injuries accept my pride. Hmmm…have you seen the Doctor?"


	9. Chapter 9

The Doctor marched quickly and with determination up the stairs to Madden's studio. He knocked loudly but didn't wait for an answer.

"Madden" he bellowed in typical Doctor Bravado.

"Doctor?" Madden's head appeared a few moments later from behind the black curtain.

"Just trying to fix the enlarger. Can I help you?" He wiped an old cloth over his greased hands and gestured towards an inviting chair.

Impatiently the Doctor sat, realising that all he had at the moment was conjecture and harassing the witness might be over-ruled, especially if Rose was here.

"Tea?" Bill poured two generous cups and settled down opposite the Time Lord.

"Thanks," he accepted the cup hastily and sipped the liquid without ever removing his eyes from the man before him.

"Do you use Selenium toner in your darkroom?" he queried.

"Yeah, of course. Punches up the contrast nicely." Bill looked confused by this line of questioning but replied amiably none the less.

"Hate that stuff. Stinks like ammonia and lingers with you for ages."

"Yeah!" Bill laughed in agreement. "Stella always complained about that."

The Doctor coughed suddenly and animatedly, mania apparent in all his actions. His chest felt tight as he set down the china and loosened his swirled blue tie.

"Can I get you some water?" Madden offered.

"Nope, fine. Thanks." He coughed again, a deep chesty sputter that propelled his body forward by its sheer force.

With shock the Doctor realised he was sweating and his breathing was coming in short, sharp pants. Internally his blood seemed to thunder through his veins and spatter against his atriums like a percussive, burst water main.

He instinctively clutched his chest and groaned in anguish, sensitive, pain receptors firing like an automatic riffle with unlimited bullets. Agitated synapses transmitted electrifying twinges, speeding in rapid succession from his left heart up into his shoulder and down his arm like adrenalin junkied racing drivers negotiating hair pin corners with force and alacrity instead of precision. His expressive face contorted in agony and disbelief.

Meanwhile Madden calmly retrieved four photographs from a locked draw in a scruffy, utilitarian chest and laid them out wordlessly on the coffee table.

The first, Richard Roddenberry screaming silently in a dank, disserted alleyway, cold and damp from the putrid weather. The second, John Windsor lying prostrate in a halo of fallen leaves and patches of grass. Next that of Mrs. Maggie, her hand gripping knuckle white to the porcelain of a peeling basin, her eyes huge and sight blind and lastly an unknown gentlemen lying face down by a scattered pile of photographs, a clear liquid seeping into his tweed, woollen jacket.

In all the pictures a lurking shadow hovered like a vulture, barely discernable to the human eye but captured in posterity by clever, silver halides.

"Digitalis," spat the ashen faced Doctor, the whites of his eyes becoming blood shot and standing out with unnatural prominence as his body, in spasm, kicked out at the rough, wooden leg of the table spilling his poisoned tea.

Madden smiled, impressed, "They were her favourites," he sighed.

"Did you use the leaves of the foxgloves you laid on her cold grave?" he ground out with laboured speech, the heavy erratic breathing forcing saliva to shoot from his grimacing mouth and bleed from his nose.

"Virtually undetectable..." he panted; "Presents as heart attack," he let out an agonising scream and clawed for purchase on anything within reach.

Madden ignored him and fetched his equipment accomplices, mounting the heavy duty camera on its tripod and slotting in the photographic plates. He paused seeming to consider, before approaching the Time Lord and fixing his eschewed tie with one hand and plastering down an errant hair spike with the other before returning to behind his trusty machine. He smiled, satisfied with his creative tableau as the Doctor struggled in disgust and desperation, looking so vulnerable and young beneath his hands.

"Smile," he said as a click and puff of smoke added to the demented scene.

The Doctor complied unknowingly as he let out a mirthless, mocking chuckle at the irony and humiliation of the death of the last of the great keepers of Time. Pain and so much regret fading from his tired eyes as a cold acceptance and relieving freedom lulled and sang to him to stopping fighting.

"Bill have you seen the Doctor?" Rose rushed in the doorway looking exasperated and annoyed.

Quickly Madden ran to a chest behind him and drew out a revolver levelling it at a anguished gapping Rose who was staring fearfully at the struggling Time Lord.

"Rose…" he croaked barely above a whisper. "Get out of here!"

"She's not going anywhere. Don't worry my dear he'll be dead soon and you will briskly follow."

Rose turned, jumping as she stared down the barrel of a gun. She stilled, regaining her composure and with venom spat out one word, "Why?"

"That thing took my wife and when it comes for me I'm going to be ready. It's the basis of science that repetition proves fact. That thing is real. Look at the pictures!" he bolstered.

Rose glanced at the four terrified faces and then at the pasty skin of the man she valued more than anything, more that the fantastic sights of the universe, more than her own life. He was always pale but now the sickly grey-blue of overworked, throbbing veins mapped his face like a Picasso charcoal drawing and each breath rasped eerily in his wheezing throat.

"If I can capture it on camera then it has substantial form and I can capture it in a prison. If death can't touch me then it will never take me."

"Immortality?" she scoffed with incongruous candour, with an added eye-roll at the familiar dementia of a crazed maniac. "That what this is about? Haven't you seen 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'? It's not the length of your life that matters but the quality of it. You could live to be a thousand and never truly have lived." She edged closer, Madden gripping the gun tighter at her approach.

"You miss her don't you? Your Stella?" A silent tear leaked down Bill's flustered face.

"What's an eternity if you're living it alone? What's life without love, when all you love dies and decays and you carry on until you can't face loving anything or anyone in your so called life?"

The Doctor was convulsing and hammering his left breast as he fought to neutralise the toxin in his blood. His brilliant amazing Rose was lecturing a mad man with a gun and he could do nothing but watch and pray and try to ignore the equal accusation that her word could level upon him

"Would the man Stella knew ever murder anyone? Sure you can use the excuse that the end justifies the means for your little experiment but what excuse can you use for me, eh? Can hardly point and shot while firing a gun? And look you're missing the Doctor last breath!"

Madden turned to inspect the broken man kicking and thrusting at the air around him and Rose saw her chance. She lunged forward with a speed and valour born of basic survival and vengeance for her misdirection. She managed to knock the gun out of his hand and it went clattering and scraping across the hard wood floor.

Madden made to grab her but she used his surprise to her advantage and ducked with a well executed pouched to the ribs. He thudded to the floor wheezing as she ran to the Doctor's side.

"Get out," he repeated as she smoothed back his hair and cradled his face.

"Never! Doctor stay with me. Please. Fight, fight for me?" Her wide, leaking eyes shone with belief and affection.

"Goodbye, Miss Tyler." Madden had shuffled back and reached the pistol which was now targeted again at the despairing blonde. She shrugged her shoulders and smiled as she looked on the face of her lonely angel, "Whatever. I'm ok," she reassured, "I wouldn't have missed this, wouldn't have missed you for a hundred lives. You made this one matter. Regenerate Doctor, LIVE, for me." She stood and serenely breathed a deep sigh that left her lips and eddied through the air until it kissed the loaded barrel of the gun.

Madden released the safety and squinted.

"Did you know Stella was pregnant when she died?" the Doctor shouted as time slowed, aching in its protracted pace.

With wide horrified eyes, the trigger was pulled and the projectile released.

The Doctor gripped Rose in his arms, holding her like a vice to his palpitating chest as thick flowing blood oozed and pooled a gory trail towards the spattered portraits of the dead.

The soft thump of the released pistol reverberating against the floor as silent tears of crimson blood trickled down Madden's face, in sympathetic sorrow, from his shattered, ruptured temple.

"Doctor?" Rose sobbed with shaky breath.

"Hush love, it's over," he rocked her automatically in gentle, comforting arms.


	10. Chapter 10

Epilogue

"Was she really pregnant?" his pink and yellow human asked as they sat in the library drinking tea, the T.A.R.D.I.S. now functional enough to be happily spinning through the vortex once more.

"Can't know for sure but I think so, makes sense! Explains why Madden was able to see the Asphyx to begin with if he was physically connected to the impending death of Stella by parental DNA."

"And this ass fixing thing really was peaceful and never posed a threat?"

The Doctor smiled at her obviously deliberate mispronunciation. She had been giving him every conceivable opportunity to lecture her or talk at her since his near death or at least near regeneration experience. She'd also been a lot more pass remarkable, complimenting his hair, fashion sense, manly hairy hands and even his slightly cauliflower ear, clearly trying to assert that she appreciated this version of him and wasn't ready to break in an upgrade.

"No, Madden had chosen people most likely to have heart defects, gave them a small dose of digitalis probably in tea, which I may add is just criminal, and let their already over stimulated imagination do the rest. Their hearts failing and the power of suggestion caused the look of sheer terror as opposed to sheer terror leading to a heart attack."

Their free hands were joined and settled casually on the couch and Rose mindlessly stroked his knuckles with soft, feathery fingers. Her brow was slightly creased and her mouth hung open as if in preparation for speech but feeling an awkward frisson in beginning.

"You really ok?"

He beamed at her reassuredly and raised her hand to press it to his lips before feigning annoyance and forcing out, "Yes, for the thousandth time. I'm fine."

"Fine as in 'I'm always fine' or fine as in fine?" she coaxed knowingly, adorable pink tongue swelling her feminine cheek.

"Digitalis smalitalis! Easy pezy, antigen neutralisation, child's play. Take's more then a fancy wild flower to beat me!" he grimaced at the unintended double entendre.

"Oh so you were just playing dead while I kicked Madden's ass for my self-esteem? And looking and sounding like a straggled chicken with the bubonic plague was just the studio lights, right?" she teased.

"Rose?" he puffed in exasperation before setting down his cup and lunging at her, "I'll show you how fine I am, young lady."

"In your dreams, old man," she shrieked as questing fingers connected with her rib cage and warm tea went flying everywhere.

Later that night the Doctor stood staring with unseeing eyes at the re-invigorated pulsating motion of the time rotor. _It's not the length of your life but the quality of it_. **So scared of death that you forget to live**. Rose would walk on alabaster shores where no sentient being had ever trend, make pancakes in the heart of super nova, run and dance through all of Time and Space but was that really the best quality of life for Rose, her time so short, one chance to act and feel and experience and regret nothing.

What of friends, family, marriage, kids? What of love? The Doctor suddenly realised all the magic moments and emotions of life that he'd stolen from Rose, all those oh so human connections, joys and miracles that she had sacrificed and at the same time, perhaps, the one that he could give back.

To be continued in the final part of this series, "There's a Time to Die".


End file.
